Liz Gross, Ph.D. is the founder and CEO of Campus Sonar, which partners with higher education focused leadership teams to guide research-led transformation grounded in social intelligence. Her team empowers leaders with online conversation insights and social listening data to develop and align brand and reputation, enrollment, and organizational planning strategies.

Liz is an award-winning speaker, author, and strategist who was named a 2018 Mover and Shaker by Social Shake-Up Show and a finalist on GreenBook’s 2019 GRIT Future List. She has delivered top-rated talks at SXSW, SXSW EDU, the American Marketing Association Symposium, the Carnegie Conference, the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, and others. She is the author of two indispensable guides for higher ed: The Higher Ed Social Listening Handbook and Fundamentals of Social Media Strategy: A Guide for College Campuses.

Liz has 20 years’ experience in higher education, spanning the private and public sector (including the University of Wisconsin campuses in Milwaukee and Waukesha). Since 2013, she’s focused on driving social listening forward as a source of business intelligence in higher education. She received a Ph.D. in Leadership for the Advancement of Learning and Service in Higher Education at Cardinal Stritch University, a master’s degree in educational policy and leadership from Marquette University, and a bachelor’s degree in interpersonal communication from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

Emmanual A. Guillory is an advocate, policy expert, and motivational speaker who currently serves as the senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education (ACE). In this role, he manages an extensive portfolio of legislative and regulatory issues as a primary government relations resource for the broader higher education community to the United States Congress, the White House, the United States Department of Education, and other agencies as warranted. His portfolio includes a primary emphasis on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA), especially Title IV programs, and the budget and appropriations process. Other issues within his portfolio include accreditation, college costs, student aid, institutional accountability, institutional aid in Titles III and V of the HEA, oversight, privacy, technology, accessibility, and disability, among others.

Previously, Guillory served as the director of student and institutional aid policy at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, leading the private, nonprofit sector of higher education on policies such as student financial aid, institutional aid programs in Titles III and V of the HEA, and certain regulatory issues. Guillory also served as the director for public policy and government affairs at UNCF (United Negro College Fund, Inc.) for two years. He worked for a decade in the House of Representatives, most recently as a professional staff member on the Committee on Education and in Workforce. He was recognized as on the The Hill's top lobbyists in Washington, DC in both 2020 and 2021 and as a top executive by Marquis Who's Who. Guillory was a federal negotiator for the Department of Education in 2019 and 2022 and a former president of the Committee for Education Funding - the largest educational coalition in our country - in 2022. He has his own nonprofit organization through which he awards scholarships to students, and he serves as a lecturer with the Archer Fellowship Program in The University of Texas System.

Guillory earned his bachelor of science in psychology from Texas A&M University, and he also serves on its leadership council through The Association of Former Students of Texas A&M University. He obtained his master of arts in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University (BGSU). He serves on BGSU's Alumni Board of Directors and on the leadership council in its College of Education and Human Development. He is currently pursuing his doctorate of education in higher education management at the University of Pennsylvania.

Joretta Nelson, Ph.D., is Vice Chairman of Credo & Founder of Moving the Needle. Joretta spent more than 20 years working in music education, teaching music theory, and conducting choirs and orchestras. She honed an ability to identify and cultivate the talent of others, and to blend those talents to create a performance more powerful and beautiful than they could ever achieve alone. She brings a similar approach to higher education leadership and strategy. In Joretta’s work with Credo clients, she empowers institutions and their staff members to merge their strengths, co-creating solutions to deliver student success results beyond their wildest imaginations.

As Credo’s vice chairman, Joretta leverages her visibility in the higher education industry to evangelize the ultimate goal of colleges and universities: student learning. She inspires presidents, board members, and other leaders to think big and bold about the challenges higher education institutions face in delivering on their promises of student success. 

Joretta’s background as both a faculty member and administrator—alongside her experiences with Credo partners—informed the development of Credo’s signature Moving the Needle (MTN) project—an innovative five-year, revenue-share partnership designed to transform campus culture and build the infrastructure, collaboration, and buy-in needed to sustain high levels of student success and retention. With the expansion of MTN to more campuses across the country, Joretta championed the creation of the MTN Talent Development Program, a professional development opportunity for faculty & staff that builds leadership through the lens of student success.